CLion Dev

CLion is an IDE

Prerequisite: Checking out and building the chromium code base

Setting up CLion

1. Install CLion

   • Googlers only: See go/intellij-getting-started for installation and license authentication instructions

2. Run CLion

3. Increase CLion's memory allocation

   This step will help performance with large projects

   1. Option 1
      1. At the startup dialogue, in the bottom right corner, click Configure
      2. Setup Edit Custom VM Options:

         -Xss2m
         -Xms1g
         -Xmx15g
         ...
         

      3. (Optional) Setup Edit Custom Properties:

         idea.max.intellisense.filesize=12500
         

   2. Option 2; 2017 and prior versions may not include the options to setup your VM Options and Properties in the configure menu. Instead:
      1. Create New Project
      2. Help > Edit Custom VM Options
      3. (Optional) Help > Edit Custom Properties

Chromium in CLion

1. Import project
   • At the startup dialog, select Import Project and select your chromium directory; this should be the parent directory to src. Selecting src instead would result in some CLion IDE files appearing in your repository.
2. (Optional) Modify the CMakeLists.txt file
   1. Open the CMakeLists.txt file.
   2. Replace the include_directories with the following. This will help with navigating between files.

      include_directories(${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/src)
      include_directories(${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/src/out/Default/gen)
      include_directories(${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/src/third_party/protobuf/src)
      include_directories(${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/src/third_party/googletest/src/googletest/include)
      

   3. (Optional) Replace the add_executable files to include a single file; the file used is irrelevant. Doing this might improve CLion performance. Leaving at least 1 file is required in order for CLion to provide code completion, navigation, etc. The file should now look like:

      cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.10)
      project(chromium)
      
      set(CMAKE_CXX_STANDARD 14)
      
      include_directories(${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/src)
      include_directories(${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/src/out/Default/gen)
      include_directories(${CMAKE_CURRENT_SOURCE_DIR}/src/third_party/googletest/src/googletest/include)
      
      add_executable(chromium src/components/omnibox/browser/document_provider.cc)
      

Building, Running, and Debugging within CLion

1. Edit the custom build targets settings
   1. ctrl+shift+a > custom build targets
   2. Click the + button to create a new target.
   3. Click the ... button next to the Build field
   4. Click the + button in the new panel
   5. Configure the fields:

      Program: <absolute path to depot_tools/ninja>
      Arguments: -C src/out/Default -j 1000 chrome
      

   6. (Optional) Repeat for Debug or other build configurations.
2. Create a run configuration
   1. Run > Edit Configurations
   2. Click + in the top left and select Custom Build Application
   3. Set the Target field to one of the targets configured in step 1
   4. Click 'Select otheroption for theExecutablefield and select the chrome build e.g.out/Default/chrome`
   5. (Optional) Repeat for Debug or other build configurations. The built targets and executables should match; i.e. don't build out/Debug but execute out/Default/chrome.
3. Run > Run (shift+f10) or Run > Debug (shift+f9) (screenshot)

Optional Steps

Create terminal cli or desktop entry

To make it easier to startup CLion or open individual files:

1. Open the actions menu (ctrl+shift+a)
2. Type create desktop entry and press enter
3. Open the actions menu and enter create command-line launcher

Mark directories as Library Files

To speed up CLion, optionally mark directories such as src/third_party as Library Files

1. Open the Project navigation (alt+1)
2. Select and right click the directories > Mark directory as > Library Files
3. See https://blog.jetbrains.com/clion/2015/12/mark-dir-as/ for more details